Seoul  - The foreign ministers of South Korea and Japan, Yu Myung Hwan and Hirofumi Nakasone, Wednesday urged communist North Korea to stop its belligerent posturing to defuse international tensions.

The latest in Pyongyang's series of sharply worded threats had created new tension and was not helpful, the South Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement after a meeting between Yu and Nakasone in Seoul.

Hanoi  - Japanese Crown Prince Naruhito met with Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet Tuesday as local press reported Japanese aid to Vietnam may resume this spring.

Naruhito met with Triet at Vietnam's Presidential Palace after laying a wreath at the tomb of former Communist leader Ho Chi Minh Tuesday morning. In the afternoon Naruhito visited a school for the blind that has received Japanese aid.

According to Vietnamese press reports, Vietnam-Japan Special Ambassador Sugi Ryotaro told Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung at a reception for the crown prince Monday that his government wanted to resume official development assistance (ODA) by April.

Tokyo  - Stocks rose in Tuesday morning trading in Tokyo as investors bought battered shares from the previous day's gains and the US dollar advanced against the yen.

But gains were capped in the wait-and-see mood before the US government's release of its bank rescue plan.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average went up 15.51 points, or 0.19 per cent, to 7,984.54.

The broader Topix index of all first section issues was also up 3.4 points, or 0.44 per cent, at 782.3.

Tokyo  - Nissan Motor Co revised downward its earnings forecast for the full fiscal year after the yen surged against other major currencies and consumer appetite for cars waned owing to the global recession, the company said Monday.

Japan's third-largest automaker after Toyota Motor Corp and Honda Motor Co estimated it would incur an operating loss of 180 billion yen (1.96 billion dollars) for fiscal 2008 that ends in March, which would be the first operating loss for Nissan in 14 years.

Tokyo  - Japan's key machinery orders fell 6 per cent in 2008 from a year before to 11.6 trillion yen (126.32 billion dollars), the Cabinet Office said Monday.

Core machinery orders, which are considered a key indicator for corporate capital spending about six months ahead, have been "drastically decreasing," the Cabinet Office said.

Tokyo  - Japan's current account surplus shrank by 34.3 per cent in 2008 from a year before, the fastest fall on record, because slowing exports and import growth narrowed the trade surplus, the Finance Ministry said Monday.

The nation's current account surplus dropped for the first time in three years to 16.28 trillion yen (177.26 billion dollars) in 2008. It was the largest drop since 1986, when the comparable data became first available.